Multimedia ‘Survivor’: Who Wins This Game?

Here’s a puzzler: If both National Geographic and National Public Radio are now in the same business of multimedia storytelling — as this piece claims — then which company has the better business model to create those stories in the years to come?

Let’s do a few quick comparisons:

• National Geographic has become an increasingly advertising-driven company at a time when advertisers and publishers are going through a painful divorce. Whereas NPR remains a virtually ad-free zone.

• National Geographic dismantled its Membership Center Building in Gaithersburg, Maryland, about 15 years ago. Whereas NPR works hard to build upon its relationships with member stations and their members.

(Sidebar: I recently attended NPR’s first-ever PubCamp, a weekend-long unconference designed “to strengthen the relationship that public broadcasters have with their communities through the creation of collaborative projects.” It was a fascinating two days, not so much for the projects, but for the passion and engagement that can be created when the leaders of a high-profile institution say to the regular folk: We need you. Help us build something new and exciting. You matter.)

• The National Geographic Society usually avoids mentioning its last name in public (see logo in photo, above) because as a senior NGS executive once told us: “Nobody wants to belong to anything.” By contrast, NPR regularly tells its members: We’re public radio. We belong to you.

• National Geographic is a .com; NPR is a .org — and wants you to know it (see photo, above).

If NPR and National Geographic are both in the business of multimedia storytelling, then a generation of young people will grow up seeing both organizations occupying the same stage — often in “partnership” (at right). As a result, the lines that distinguish these two brands will gradually blur in the minds of consumers (NPR is a great destination for stunning multimedia stories….). The business models, though, will continue to diverge.

Our biggest fear? The organization that maintains its dependence on advertising revenue and air freshener will, sooner or later, kill itself.

The good news is we’re optimists. We still think National Geographic could pull out of its death spiral. But the Society — especially the Magazine — needs to do a few things, and do them soon. Here’s our Top Ten List (which is a partial summary of Society Matters to date):

Would you join us? If so, please give this interview request a 'thumbs up':

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About

Hi. I'm Alan Mairson. I'm a freelance journalist based in Bethesda, Maryland; a former staff writer & editor for National Geographic magazine; and a member & lifelong fan of the National Geographic Society. For details about this project, please check out our inaugural post. For more about my advisers & me, see this. To feel the tight financial grip that Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation exerts on the National Geographic Society, peek at these tax returns. And if you'd like to share ideas, questions, or suggestions — or if you just want to heckle :-) — please contact me here. Thanks for stopping by.